The Arizona sentinel., 1887-01-08
JEFFERSoN'S TOMB.
The Shaft Erected Over the Statesman's
 Grave MutiIated by Relic-Hunters.

Grave Mutilated by Relic-Hunters.
 Colonel Wilson, of the army, who has charge of the monument recently erected by order of Congress over the grave of Thomas Jefferson, at Monti- cello, says that the vandals are already at work chipping chunks off the stone, and that if it is to be preserved a mili- tary guard will have to be sent down there. Several years ago Congress ap- propriated 5000 for the purpose of re- storing the cemetery in which Jefferson is buried, and erecting new monu- ment over his grave. This was in the time of Hayes and the appropriation was not to be available until the own CTS of the estate gave a quit-claim to the United States of tract of ground two rods square surrounding the burial place, and pathway by which access thereto might be afforded the public. Jefferson was buried at Monticello in a little cemetery on his own plantation, and his wife, other members of his family. and some of his old servants lie beside him. When the estate was being laid out at the time he was President, Jefferson wrote to his overseer instructing him to set apart a little plot of ground as burial place. "ChoOse some unfrequented vale in the park" he said, ''where there is no sound to break the stiffness but the bab- bling of a brook that winds among the woods, where no mark of human shape is, unless it be the skeleton of some poor wretch who sought out the spot to despair and die in. Let it be among the venerable oaks. Intersperse some gloomy evergreens. Appropriate one half of it for my family and the rest for my servants and strangers who may die in the neighborhood. Let the exit look upon the Blue Mountains. "
 The first stone that was erected over Jefferson's grave was an exact copy of a diagram he left, and the epitaph was as he wrote it. It was chipped to pieces by relic hunters. A second one, and a fac-simile, was substituted in 1851 of the same material, which he thought no one would be tempted to destroy, be- cause of its great value, but during the war the soldiers camping in that neigh borhood carried it off piecemeal, until nothing was left but sandstone stump. The wall around the little cemetery was destroyed and the whole plantation was in state of dilapida- tion. Then Congress ordered it to be restored, and, although the bill passed in 1878, it was not until 1885 that the Secretary of State was able to get a title to the cemetery. The Secretary, with more of an eye to the artistic than a wish to comply with his famous predecessors instructions, repudiated Mir. Jefferson's model and material, and instead of a shaft six feet high of the sandstone found on the place, has given him a shaft eighteen feet high of granite. The work was e2nly recently finished, and Colonel Wilson, who -weIfT down -A.-;;.ss -;;.ss77snlc.t-it, has made a report to the Secretary of State, in which he recommends that some means be taken to protect it from the vandals, who have already been at work, and have ruined the monument by chipping off large chunks from the corners. The Colonel says the iron fence is a sufficient protection against grown people, for the gate is kept locked; but small boys squeeze through between the iron pickets, and, with hammers and hatchets, break the corn CTS off and sell them as relics to visitors. He says the agent at the railway station told him that only the day before he ar rived two well-dressed ladies appeared with large pieces of the stone, which they said they had hired a boy to chip off for them. The way to circumvent the vandals is to hire men to stay on the place and watch all who come.-M T. Sltn